Week 18 – Brisbane, Australia to Borneo, Malaysia

Fred's world tour

Week 18 – Brisbane, Australia to Borneo, Malaysia
26^th of January until the 1^st of February 2013
In brief:

1. Fly back to Sydney from Brisbane.
   
2. See the Darling Harbour fireworks.
   
3. Finish the job paperwork and buy the last few bits for the Borneo expedition.
   
4. Go see and intimate 'La Soiree' at the Sydney Opera house.
   
5. Fly to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia (Sabah Borneo)
   
6. Meet up with the rest of the Raleigh international project managers.
   
7. Begin an intense 2 weeks of Raleigh lessons, exercises and trekking.
   
8. Happily hand over the duties of blog writing to the pros at http://raleighborneo.blogspot.com

This week starts with a little lie-in and yep, you guessed it, a huge buffet breakfast! We made our way to the airport to fly back to Sydney. At this point we hadn't been having the best weather but that is nothing compared to the rain that the Whitsundays and Rockhampton are getting. Record rainfall apparently! We were so lucky to have had such great weather when we were up there. Once back we went straight to Bondi and caught up with Tony and Daithi. That afternoon because its Australia day we headed to Darling Harbour to see the Australia Day fireworks. As I've been here before I managed to sneak us through the cinema and up to a great spot to watch the spectacle. They were really good because they include fireworks, laser show, lights, and music. Great way to experience my first Australia day. The hoards of people was incredible.
The Sunday was a bit of a blur for me. It was long and hard trying to get all my paperwork and packing done because at 7pm I booked Chris, Tony, Daithi and I some tickets to go see The Soiree show in one of the studios in the Sydney Opera house. Mark also got himself a ticket and we luckily were able all to sit on the front row. It was really good, with plenty of weird and wonderful things not to mention getting wet because of a gymnast doing acrobatics around a bath full of water!

Monday I was off to Kota Kinabalu via Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia. I was sad to say goodbye to everyone in Australia, nervous about the next three months of Jungle medicine but also very excited.
After meeting the fieldbase team in Kota Kinabalu at 11am on the 29^th of April they took us to the the Raleigh house. At Raleigh Fieldbase is where for the next 2wks we would be inducted and moulded into the perfect Project Managers on Raleigh International's 3month expedition '13C'.
The venturers won't be arriving until Valentine's Day (14^th of February)
Let the fun begin!
This is where I sign out for 3months (official duties end 27/4/13) and the Raleigh blog takes over. So for all the updates head to
http://raleighborneo.blogspot.com
That's all for now, see you at the end of April.
Fred